The Collected SF & Fantasy Works. Abraham Merritt

prolonged call. The lake of gems — rubies and amethysts, mauves and scarlet-tinged blues — wavered and shook even as it had before — and swept swiftly back to that place whence she had drawn them!

      Then, with Larry and Lakla walking ahead, white arm about his brown neck; the O’Keefe still expostulating, the handmaiden laughing merrily, we passed through her bower to the domed castle.

      Glancing through a cleft I caught sight again of the far end of the bridge; noted among the clustered figures of its garrison of the frog-men a movement, a flashing of green fire like marshlights on spear tips; wondered idly what it was, and then, other thoughts crowding in, followed along, head bent, behind the pair who had found in what was Olaf’s hell, their true paradise.

       1. The Akka are viviparous. The female produces progeny at five-year intervals, never more than two at a time. They are monogamous, like certain of our own Ranidae. Pending my monograph upon what little I had time to learn of their interesting habits and customs, the curious will find instruction and entertainment in Brandes and Schvenichen’s Brutpfleige der Schwanzlosen Bat rachier, p. 395; and Lilian V. Sampson’s Unusual Modes of Breeding among Anura, Amer. Nat. xxxiv., 1900. — W. T. G.

       2. The Yekta of the Crimson Sea, are as extraordinary developments of hydroid forms as the giant Medusae, of which, of course, they are not too remote cousins. The closest resemblances to them in outer water forms are among the Gymnoblastic Hydroids, notably Clavetella prolifera, a most interesting ambulatory form of six tentacles. Almost every bather in Southern waters, Northern too, knows the pain that contact with certain “jelly fish” produces. The Yekta’s development was prodigious and, to us, monstrous. It secretes in its five heads an almost incredibly swiftly acting poison which I suspect, for I had no chance to verify the theory, destroys the entire nervous system to the accompaniment of truly infernal agony; carrying at the same time the illusion that the torment stretches through infinities of time. Both ether and nitrous oxide gas produce in the majority this sensation of time extension, without of course the pain symptom. What Lakla called the Yekta kiss is I imagine about as close to the orthodox idea of Hell as can be conceived. The secret of her control over them I had no opportunity of learning in the rush of events that followed. Knowledge of the appalling effects of their touch came, she told me, from those few “who had been kissed so lightly” that they recovered. Certainly nothing, not even the Shining One, was dreaded by the Murians as these were — W. T. G.

      CHAPTER XXVII

       THE COMING OF YOLARA

       Table of Contents

      “Never was there such a girl!” Thus Larry, dreamily, leaning head in hand on one of the wide divans of the chamber where Lakla had left us, pleading service to the Silent Ones.

      “An’, by the faith and the honour of the O’Keefes, an’ by my dead mother’s soul may God do with me as I do by her!” he whispered fervently.

      He relapsed into open-eyed dreaming.

      I walked about the room, examining it — the first opportunity I had gained to inspect carefully any of the rooms in the abode of the Three. It was octagonal, carpeted with the thick rugs that seemed almost as though woven of soft mineral wool, faintly shimmering, palest blue. I paced its diagonal; it was fifty yards; the ceiling was arched, and either of pale rose metal or metallic covering; it collected the light from the high, slitted windows, and shed it, diffused, through the room.

      Around the octagon ran a low gallery not two feet from the floor, balustraded with slender pillars, close set; broken at opposite curtained entrances over which hung thick, dull-gold curtainings giving the same suggestion of metallic or mineral substance as the rugs. Set within each of the eight sides, above the balcony, were colossal slabs of lapis lazuli, inset with graceful but unplaceable designs in scarlet and sapphire blue.

      There was the great divan on which mused Larry; two smaller ones, half a dozen low seats and chairs carved apparently of ivory and of dull soft gold.

      Most curious were tripods, strong, pikelike legs of golden metal four feet high, holding small circles of the lapis with intaglios of one curious symbol somewhat resembling the ideographs of the Chinese.

      There was no dust — nowhere in these caverned spaces had I found this constant companion of ours in the world overhead. My eyes caught a sparkle from a corner. Pursuing it I found upon one of the low seats a flat, clear crystal oval, remarkably like a lens. I took it and stepped up on the balcony. Standing on tiptoe I found I commanded from the bottom of a window slit a view of the bridge approach. Scanning it I could see no trace of the garrison there, nor of the green spear flashes. I placed the crystal to my eyes — and with a disconcerting abruptness the cavern mouth leaped before me, apparently not a hundred feet away; decidedly the crystal was a very excellent lens — but where were the guards?

      I peered closely. Nothing! But now against the aperture I saw a score or more of tiny, dancing sparks. An optical illusion, I thought, and turned the crystal in another direction. There were no sparklings there. I turned it back again — and there they were. And what were they like? Realization came to me — they were like the little, dancing, radiant atoms that had played for a time about the emptiness where had stood Sorgar of the Lower Waters before he bad been shaken into the nothingness! And that green light I had noticed — the Keth!

      A cry on my lips, I turned to Larry — and the cry died as the heavy curtainings at the entrance on my right undulated, parted as though a body had slipped through, shook and parted again and again — with the dreadful passing of unseen things!

      “Larry!” I cried. “Here! Quick!”

      He leaped to his feet, gazed about wildly — and disappeared! Yes — vanished from my sight like the snuffed flame of a candle or as though something moving with the speed of light itself had snatched him away!

      Then from the divan came the sounds of struggle, the hissing of straining breaths, the noise of Larry cursing. I leaped over the balustrade, drawing my own pistol — was caught in a pair of mighty arms, my elbows crushed to my sides, drawn down until my face pressed close to a broad, hairy breast — and through that obstacle — formless, shadowless, transparent as air itself — I could still see the battle on the divan!

      Now there were two sharp reports; the struggle abruptly ceased. From a point not a foot over the great couch, as though oozing from the air itself, blood began to drop, faster and ever faster, pouring out of nothingness.

      And out of that same air, now a dozen feet away, leaped the face of Larry — bodyless, poised six feet above the floor, blazing with rage — floating weirdly, uncannily to a hideous degree, in vacancy.

      His hands flashed out — armless; they wavered, appearing, disappearing — swiftly tearing something from him. Then there, feet hidden, stiff on legs that vanished at the ankles, striking out into vision with all the dizzy abruptness with which he had been stricken from sight was the O’Keefe, a smoking pistol in hand.

      And ever that red stream trickled out of vacancy and spread over the couch, dripping to the floor.

      I made a mighty movement to escape; was held more firmly — and then close to the face of Larry, flashing out with that terrifying instantaneousness even as had his, was the head of Yolara, as devilishly mocking as I had ever seen it, the cruelty shining through it like delicate white flames from hell — and beautiful!

      “Stir not! Strike not — until I command!” She flung the words beyond her, addressed to the invisible ones who had accompanied her; whose presences I sensed filling the chamber. The floating, beautiful head, crowned high with corn-silk hair, darted toward the Irishman. He took a swift step backward. The eyes of the priestess deepened toward purple; sparkled with malice.

      “So,” she said. “So, Larree — you thought you could go from me so easily!” She laughed softly. “In my hidden hand I hold the Keth cone,” she murmured.